Stating
that the United Auto Workers union had no right to speak out for non-members, a group of Ford retirees are going to
court to challenge the December agreement between the automaker and the union.
The retirees claim that as they are no longer dues-paying members of the union, they have no voting
rights, and therefore the union should not have the power to renegotiate benefit agreements. At the very
least, the lawsuit could delay the implementation of the retiree health-care cuts (in Ford’s case, the agreement is
worth over $3 million dollars a day). Longer-term, it’s possible that the impact could affect other manufacturers
looking to make similar changes to retiree health care programs. Naturally, all of this stands to potentially have a
of negative impact on the union’s effectiveness.
Stay tuned – this one could get interesting…